Nix Panicus posted:

This one's for you Koos: Are you happy? When you look around at the work you've done in D&D are you proud of your efforts? Can you sit back and feel a sense of accomplishment, even if the work is never truly finished?

How is Koos doing?

Koos Group posted:

Yes, generally speaking based on the feedback, the day to day thread quality, and the behind the scenes metric of reports, D&D seems to be doing better than it was.

Koos Group posted:

Yes, generally speaking based on the feedback, the day to day thread quality, and the behind the scenes metric of reports, D&D seems to be doing better than it was.

ronya posted:

I've noticed a trickle of folks whose gimmick is vacuous or shallow questions - not even hostile JAQ-ing off, but just a stream of simple questions or confused naïveté - in order to either get a rise out of thread regulars, or to crowd out headline-driven thread interest when the news cycle is embarrassing to their favourite authoritarians

(the contrived ignorance can be readily detected by clicking Post History and observing the posts in the other forum)

So without naming names, I'd like to specifically praise the recent mod activity to call out and enforce threadbans for this, which I feel has improved the D&D China thread noticeably

Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:

1. QCS is an FYAD-lite and a joke. Either this needs to be fixed or D&D mods (anyone, really) need to stop referring people to it when they don't want to address an issue themselves.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

When did you last have a look? The forum has become more functional than ever in recent times. Admittedly it still suffers from the occasional trolling, usually by mods of all posters, but it generally manages to arrive at the right conclusion in the end. Obviously there are still issues that can't be solved in any venue, given that Jeffrey ultimately has to sign off on it and has made it perfectly clear he won't, but for everything else the system actually works.

Lib and let die posted:

You've done a fantastic job driving out many of the most passionate dissenting voices and creating an atmosphere where your superstar posters feel comfortable enough that they are exempt from punishment for digging up peoples' personal information and using it as a cudgel so silence them. May you reign for thousands of years!

Discendo Vox posted:

1. It is very frustrating to see someone violate the rules, and instead of applying them, the mods proceed to ask the user questions and give them control of the thread for several pages. Every single time this happens, the only effect is to draw out the harm to discussion that the rule is supposed to prevent, and the original violator either a) gets probated anyway or b) they don't, and all people looking to poo poo up discussion get an object lesson in forms of discussion-making GBS threads that the mods will facilitate. When you do this, you are making moderation harder for yourselves in the future, and making the subforum less useable for everyone else.

2. It is not helpful to have an enumerated set of rules if mod actions then don't align with those rules. When non-joke probes or other actions don't make clear what rules they're violating it provides justification for the users complaining that moderation is inconsistent.
2a. Similarly, when it arises that mod action is needed that doesn't fall under the enumerated rules, the reason should say that this is the case, and the mods should explicitly confer (not necessarily publicly) about whether and how the rules can be revised to address that situation.
2b. Moderation policies and their rationale should be stated publicly in one place, and should not be announced ad hoc in the middle of arguments with users, in D&D or elsewhere. This also contributes to both the perception and the reality of inconsistent moderation.

You should not use the number of reports as a metric of quality; Campbell's law applies. There are reasons for the report number to decline that don't have to do with things getting better. Users leaving, activity shrinking, and users being taught that reports will do nothing, will also cause the number of reports to drop. You need to start with what you believe the forum is supposed to be, and directly tie it to your evaluation of "quality," preferably with more explicit terms, and with prior identification of carveouts.

For example, if you believe that the subforum should be educational, then people asking more factual questions that get answered can be a sign of healthy discourse, and that standard can be explicitly exclusive of people asking rhetorical questions intended to derail discussion. I could give a big rant about functional form here, but unless you think that "quality of the subforum" is inherently a number, you should treat numeric measures with skepticism- you'll tend to overvalue them.

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Also D&D needs a stylesheet.

Discendo Vox posted:

... people asking rhetorical questions intended to derail discussion.
...

Discendo Vox posted:

1. It is very frustrating to see someone violate the rules, and instead of applying them, the mods proceed to ask the user questions and give them control of the thread for several pages. Every single time this happens, the only effect is to draw out the harm to discussion that the rule is supposed to prevent, and the original violator either a) gets probated anyway or b) they don't, and all people looking to poo poo up discussion get an object lesson in forms of discussion-making GBS threads that the mods will facilitate. When you do this, you are making moderation harder for yourselves in the future, and making the subforum less useable for everyone else.

2. It is not helpful to have an enumerated set of rules if mod actions then don't align with those rules. When non-joke probes or other actions don't make clear what rules they're violating it provides justification for the users complaining that moderation is inconsistent.
2a. Similarly, when it arises that mod action is needed that doesn't fall under the enumerated rules, the reason should say that this is the case, and the mods should explicitly confer (not necessarily publicly) about whether and how the rules can be revised to address that situation.
2b. Moderation policies and their rationale should be stated publicly in one place, and should not be announced ad hoc in the middle of arguments with users, in D&D or elsewhere. This also contributes to both the perception and the reality of inconsistent moderation.

You should not use the number of reports as a metric of quality; Campbell's law applies. There are reasons for the report number to decline that don't have to do with things getting better. Users leaving, activity shrinking, and users being taught that reports will do nothing, will also cause the number of reports to drop. You need to start with what you believe the forum is supposed to be, and directly tie it to your evaluation of "quality," preferably with more explicit terms, and with prior identification of carveouts.

For example, if you believe that the subforum should be educational, then people asking more factual questions that get answered can be a sign of healthy discourse, and that standard can be explicitly exclusive of people asking rhetorical questions intended to derail discussion. I could give a big rant about functional form here, but unless you think that "quality of the subforum" is inherently a number, you should treat numeric measures with skepticism- you'll tend to overvalue them.

Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:

Thanks for confirming that it's useless. I've checked it out numerous times over the years. It's a branch of FYAD in which every legitimate concern gets ridiculed by a collection of mods, regulars and others and then inevitably the thread gets closed.

Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:

What I've seen earlier this year is that somebody who had a legitimate issue with seeing other posters deny genocides was dogpiled by people telling him to play Elden Ring instead of complaining.

Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:

Another thing I saw is that the whole thing now has maybe 3 permanent threads that are completely anodyne.

Fister Roboto posted:

My feedback is that nobody should ever listen to this twerp. Everything they post is this kind of pseudo-intellectual verborrheic nonsense. Every time they get in an argument with someone, they immediately attack the other person as "making GBS threads up the discussion" (I'm fairly certain that this is against the rules that DV wants to be strictly enforced). It's clear that they only want debate and discussion to occur within the narrow constraints that they deem acceptable. It's exhausting to try discussing anything with them, and it usually ends with a probation for the other person. If the mods really want D&D to be better and more open to discussion, then efforts should be made to get DV to stop domineering the conversation like this.

Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:

2. Rigid application of rules against "posting about posters" is too blunt (see the Ukraine thread). It needs to be possible to refer to what someone does as an example for a certain behavior/logic or other things. I'm not seeing how rule IIC1 is needed when there's already rule IC1.

Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:

(Also about the rules - if you have a subsection 1, you must have a subsection 2 (or more). If not, add it to the one above in the hierarchy.)

Lib and let die posted:

You've done a fantastic job driving out many of the most passionate dissenting voices and creating an atmosphere where your superstar posters feel comfortable enough that they are exempt from punishment for digging up peoples' personal information and using it as a cudgel so silence them. May you reign for thousands of years!

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Also D&D needs a stylesheet.

Harold Fjord posted:

Koos post the metrics

A Buttery Pastry posted:

To bring this back to the discussion of D&D, I realize now that there obviously is an issue here, given the cycles of weird grudge-threads between certain D&D and C-SPAM posters which has everyone else just pointing and laughing. Perhaps the mods should post a little guide for when they refer people to QCS, asking them if their post avoids the issues I outlined above? As is, it doesn't seem like there's a real functional outlet for escalating complaints, if a chunk of D&D posters have become so insular that they can't properly communicate with "outsiders" (Obviously the same applies to their C-SPAM counterparts).

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Definitely also this. I ventured out of the regional threads for a while, but decided it wasn't worth it the moment it became clear that certain posters are not actually subject to the rules of D&D. No one is going to want to put in effort discussing a topic when the other person is just going to be allowed to make poo poo up and not respond to your criticism of their position.

Discendo Vox posted:

1. It is very frustrating to see someone violate the rules, and instead of applying them, the mods proceed to ask the user questions and give them control of the thread for several pages. Every single time this happens, the only effect is to draw out the harm to discussion that the rule is supposed to prevent, and the original violator either a) gets probated anyway or b) they don't, and all people looking to poo poo up discussion get an object lesson in forms of discussion-making GBS threads that the mods will facilitate. When you do this, you are making moderation harder for yourselves in the future, and making the subforum less useable for everyone else.

2. It is not helpful to have an enumerated set of rules if mod actions then don't align with those rules. When non-joke probes or other actions don't make clear what rules they're violating it provides justification for the users complaining that moderation is inconsistent.
2a. Similarly, when it arises that mod action is needed that doesn't fall under the enumerated rules, the reason should say that this is the case, and the mods should explicitly confer (not necessarily publicly) about whether and how the rules can be revised to address that situation.
2b. Moderation policies and their rationale should be stated publicly in one place, and should not be announced ad hoc in the middle of arguments with users, in D&D or elsewhere. This also contributes to both the perception and the reality of inconsistent moderation.

You should not use the number of reports as a metric of quality; Campbell's law applies. There are reasons for the report number to decline that don't have to do with things getting better. Users leaving, activity shrinking, and users being taught that reports will do nothing, will also cause the number of reports to drop. You need to start with what you believe the forum is supposed to be, and directly tie it to your evaluation of "quality," preferably with more explicit terms, and with prior identification of carveouts.

For example, if you believe that the subforum should be educational, then people asking more factual questions that get answered can be a sign of healthy discourse, and that standard can be explicitly exclusive of people asking rhetorical questions intended to derail discussion. I could give a big rant about functional form here, but unless you think that "quality of the subforum" is inherently a number, you should treat numeric measures with skepticism- you'll tend to overvalue them.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

After a rocky few weeks with too much mod-intervention/trolling, it appears the mod team has backed off trying to enforce its vision of the forum on the regional threads where the thread consensus is that the thread is better when the mods stay away. So, good job staying out.

Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:

2. Rigid application of rules against "posting about posters" is too blunt (see the Ukraine thread). It needs to be possible to refer to what someone does as an example for a certain behavior/logic or other things. I'm not seeing how rule IIC1 is needed when there's already rule IC1.

(Also about the rules - if you have a subsection 1, you must have a subsection 2 (or more). If not, add it to the one above in the hierarchy.)

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Let D&D be poo poo posty lite again

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Also D&D needs a stylesheet.

World Famous W posted:

Elephant Ambush posted:

It should also no longer be against the rules to be mean to people like them because they deserve it for trying to be the main characters of this forum and dictate how everyone else should follow their rules and posting style. They're also constantly wrong and anyone who points that out with a sarcastic joke gets probated and that's bullshit

We're adults here, not in high school debate club and we should be able to post like adults instead of walking on eggshells so that we don't bruise this rules-obsessed dweeb's fragile little ego

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Definitely also this. I ventured out of the regional threads for a while, but decided it wasn't worth it the moment it became clear that certain posters are not actually subject to the rules of D&D. No one is going to want to put in effort discussing a topic when the other person is just going to be allowed to make poo poo up and not respond to your criticism of their position.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Just post in C-SPAM if you want to post in C-SPAM. The whole point of having multiple subforums is to meet different expectations of different posters, and “recreational hipfiring about politics” is well served already by one.

World Famous W posted:

nah, ill keep posting here, mainly in usce and politoon, like ive done for a decade plus

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Just saying, there’s a fine political style sheet right next door.

Koos Group posted:

I still think we should have a style sheet based on this fresco: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/%22The_School_of_Athens%22_by_Raffaello_Sanzio_da_Urbino.jpg

cinci zoo sniper posted:

I think you misunderstand how this works. The point of trying to get an IK for Scandipol was to offer the thread to have a voice in a hypothetical moderation action. As the thread has broadly ignored the offer to self-moderate itself, no one is going to be consulted when in mods’ subjective opinion something has to be done in it.

Koos Group posted:

No posters are immune from D&D's rules. There is some amount of leniency afforded to posters who are providing high quality discussion or are experts in a relevant subject, but that is only a lessening of punishment or an additional chance. If they consistently break the rules, particularly in the same way repeatedly, they will be punished like everyone else.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Do you have any recent examples of this?

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Only if with a Serif font

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Can you explain why this is the case? I would think someone posting "as an expert" should be subject to greater scrutiny, given that they're essentially being raised up above other posters as official experts. Like, is this not just an officially sanctioned appeal to authority?

Incidentally, what is the criteria for being judged as an "expert in a relevant subject"? Because I remember a thread where the resident expert clearly showed that their expertise was regurgitating a blinkered version of their supposed area of expertise. You're not really doing the forum a service by elevating certain voices over others, since it just becomes another way to launder mod bias.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

"Something has to be done"? The people causing trouble before you went in to advocate for an IK were mods. We've got a perfectly stable system going on in Scandipol, no reason to mess with it.

Lib and let die posted:

You've done a fantastic job driving out many of the most passionate dissenting voices and creating an atmosphere where your superstar posters feel comfortable enough that they are exempt from punishment for digging up peoples' personal information and using it as a cudgel so silence them. May you reign for thousands of years!

Elephant Ambush posted:

lmao

So basically you want to be a mod and the sole poster in this forum because you think you're always right and smarter than everyone else

You are actually one of the dumbest and most arrogant and condescending assholes on this or any other forum and this place would be a million times better for actual debate and discussion if you and evilweasel were forum banned

So that's my feedback. Forum bans for this delusional poindexter and his idiot doppelganger evilweasel. They're not nearly as smart as they want everyone else to think they are and all they do is whine about strictly enforced rules which just happen to align with the idea that their posts should never be challenged by anyone

It should also no longer be against the rules to be mean to people like them because they deserve it for trying to be the main characters of this forum and dictate how everyone else should follow their rules and posting style. They're also constantly wrong and anyone who points that out with a sarcastic joke gets probated and that's bullshit

We're adults here, not in high school debate club and we should be able to post like adults instead of walking on eggshells so that we don't bruise this rules-obsessed dweeb's fragile little ego

I also still maintain that Koos being in charge is some kind of long con troll on this forum to try to make it as miserable for everyone as possible and I want to call that out again just in case anyone forgot. I don't believe anything he says and every post he makes just looks like any other fyad style fakepost dressed up in fake decorum

Things were great for a short while after he took over but in the last few months nobody but the echo chamber liberals want to post in CE and I'm sure DV and EW love it because there's a lot less people to tell them they're wrong. I don't know if it was one of those two guys but lib and let die got doxxed because he dared push back on and make fun of democrats and if democrat supporters get to run this show by constantly spamming reports and whining to mods when they don't get their way then this place will be nothing but a liberal support group that doxxes people for correctly making GBS threads all over their demonstrable failure of an ideology. And it wouldn't surprise me if that same psycho tries to doxx me for making this very post. Stop coddling and sheltering these centrist nutjobs

And now I'm sure Koos is laughing and saying "mission accomplished" after reading this. Helluva job. You got a "meltdown". Congrats

Fister Roboto posted:

My feedback is that nobody should ever listen to this twerp. Everything they post is this kind of pseudo-intellectual verborrheic nonsense. Every time they get in an argument with someone, they immediately attack the other person as "making GBS threads up the discussion" (I'm fairly certain that this is against the rules that DV wants to be strictly enforced). It's clear that they only want debate and discussion to occur within the narrow constraints that they deem acceptable. It's exhausting to try discussing anything with them, and it usually ends with a probation for the other person. If the mods really want D&D to be better and more open to discussion, then efforts should be made to get DV to stop domineering the conversation like this.

the_steve posted:

It really is more of the same; One sided moderation designed to keep dedicated centrists safe from any dissenting opinions that may upset their delicate balances and self-described "experts" who continue to get a free pass while violating the same rules they keep screeching and demanding everyone else be held accountable to because they couch it in enough that Koos has decided they must be super smart to have such long paragraphs.

Koos Group posted:

I would define an expert as someone who has direct experience in a certain field or with a certain phenomenon and is consequently more knowledgeable about it that a layman. We do of course scrutinize whether they are lying about that experience, and will punish them if they are, since that is an extreme form of bad faith. It also is appeal to authority, yes.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

For as long as no mod is going to have a reason to consider moderation action in the thread, sure, everyone there seems to be having a perfectly fine time. If a mod will consider intervening, be that reason a report or someone just browsing the thread at leisure, they’ll however unlikely leave everyone in the thread happy, for the reasons I’ve enunciated in the thread - y’all, funnily enough, touch grass so much that it’s difficult to establish proper context by simply reading up on the thread, with no mods presently living in the region. If the thread would have an IK in that scenario, all intervention considerations would get deferred to the IK via regional threads’ prerogative to self-moderation, and potentially hamfisted mod intervention would only come if the IK royally misses the mark on expectations, e.g., the conclusion of Cardiac’s tenure.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

But why even afford them any extra leeway? Either their posts reflect that apparent expertise or they don't, doesn't really matter if they have a diploma or whatever. And of course direct experience also means a risk of some deep biases. Like, an American police officer would qualify as an expert on criminal justice because they work in the field, but you'd have to be the most naïve person in the world to treat more than a handful as an expert on anything the system is ostensibly about.

tristeham posted:

i find it fascinating that any talk about the geneva convention is forbidden in a thread about an ongoing war.

keep up the good work!